General Discussion? What's that all about?

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The fact that the "keep" arguments currently outnumber the "delete" arguments here makes some kind of statement about Wikipedia. In fact, the fact that the discussion exists makes some kind of statement about Wikipedia.

Turd Blossum → FecesNow this one is just plain surreal. Looking at the history, this appears to have started life as an attack page, had four revisions deleted from the history, and then recreated as a redirect. I see not why, but maybe there's a good reason for it. Maybe. – iridescent 22:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC) * Weak retarget to Karl Rove List of nicknames used by George W. Bush#Staff, as proposed by Snigbrook below. This is fairly well documented as a nickname George W. Bush gave to Rove, meant as a compliment rather than an insult. On the other hand, some Bush/Rove critics use this as an anti-Rove meme, so it has an insulting dimension as well- hence, only a weak !vote to retarget. — Gavia immer (talk) 01:19, 9 January 2009 (UTC) * Retarget to List of nicknames used by George W. Bush#Staff, which Turd blossom and Turd Blossom already redirect to. —Snigbrook 12:27, 9 January 2009 (UTC) Yes, that's a better target. I endorse this over my original choice. — Gavia immer (talk) 16:51, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

How incredibly professional and smooth of them. To discuss keeping a misspelled nickname...delete it, you assholes!

This post has been edited by EricBarbour: Fri 9th January 2009, 11:32pm

So, is that what Krimpet is up to? Killing off stupid synonyms for "vagina"?Is it because she's unhappy that she wasn't born with one?......(kidding, kidding)

It must be extremely difficult for transsexuals; I understand that. But I can't personally relate to why one would have a strong desire to change sex. Iit's not something that... you know. I just don't get it at all. If you're born XY, you'll always be XY. There's no point in having a 'sex change' if you'll always be genetically male.

It must be extremely difficult for transsexuals; I understand that. But I can't personally relate to why one would have a strong desire to change sex. Iit's not something that... you know. I just don't get it at all. If you're born XY, you'll always be XY. There's no point in having a 'sex change' if you'll always be genetically male.

I'll pretend this isn't a troll.

Lolwut, you are not your genes. That is why your identical twin will not have your fingerprints or retinal patern, and probably will not look enough like you that even your friends would have difficulty telling you apart. DNA is a recipe, not a blueprint. It's not complex enough to be anything like a blueprint (for example, your brain has 20 or 30 times more neurons than your DNA has base pairs). The rest of what happens after the recipe is executed comes from outside factors in development, random events, evolutionary competition between cell populations, and other kinds of the same sort of stuff that make one chocolate chip cookie different from another chocolate chip cookie.

All this includes brain-wiring. What gender you "feel like" is not what some stretch of DNA says, but how it's transcribed, what proteins get made, what wiring is invoked, what cells survive, what hormones are active, what womb environment is like, what postnatal programming and experiences take place. Saying there's "no point" in having a "sex change" if you're XX or XY is about as clueless a comment as opining that there's "no point" in rebuilding your house to your own specks, if the original drunken archetect messed up the sketchy plans, the construction crew didn't bother to execute THOSE, and the whole thing was hit by Hurricane Fuckup later, anyway.

No point? Does there have to be a point, except what you're happy to live in? Or not-- as the case may be?

There are such things as "chromosomal anomalies" in individuals, actually, that cause people to feel like they've been born with the wrong gender... Still, this is off-topic, surely?

I'm going to risk upsetting my many fans and admirers among the family-values crowd by stating my opinion that articles on genitalia euphemisms probably ought to be kept in most cases. They're potentially useful for etymological purposes, there are rarely any reputational or ideological issues involved, and most of them are a lot less disturbing for little kids than illustrated articles about "deviant" sexual practices which are kept rather routinely on WP.

There are such things as "chromosomal anomalies" in individuals, actually, that cause people to feel like they've been born with the wrong gender... Still, this is off-topic, surely?

I'm going to risk upsetting my many fans and admirers among the family-values crowd by stating my opinion that articles on genitalia euphemisms probably ought to be kept in most cases. They're potentially useful for etymological purposes, there are rarely any reputational or ideological issues involved, and most of them are a lot less disturbing for little kids than illustrated articles about "deviant" sexual practices which are kept rather routinely on WP.

The problem is that there are literally tens of thousands of euphemisms and more being invented every day.

The problem is that there are literally tens of thousands of euphemisms and more being invented every day.

So? Wikipedia is WP:NOTPAPER. That said, this could have been handled with a stand-alone list on sexual euphemisms where you can look up snatch and bearded clam and hoo-hoo and one-eyed trouser-snake and wedding tackle. As you once could with homosexual slang on LGBT slang before somebody realized it mostly could be offloaded to lists of external net links where they keep track of most of it better. Yes, it overlaps the slang part of Wiktionary, but then the divisions between category knowledge are all, in some sense, artifical in the end anyway, are they not? It's all one piece.

My father used to say that all swearing is metaphor and all metaphor is poetry. Some of the same applies to slang, and especially vulgar slang. You really cannot fully master a language without it.

Lolwut, you are not your genes. That is why your identical twin will not have your fingerprints or retinal patern, and probably will not look enough like you that even your friends would have difficulty telling you apart.

eh? you will, won't you, I mean you do have at least the same fingerprint as your twin, and you are quite identical unless you are heavier or do something different with your hair etc. Just saying.

Lolwut, you are not your genes. That is why your identical twin will not have your fingerprints or retinal patern, and probably will not look enough like you that even your friends would have difficulty telling you apart.

eh? you will, won't you, I mean you do have at least the same fingerprint as your twin, and you are quite identical unless you are heavier or do something different with your hair etc. Just saying.

Their fingerprints are similar, but not identical. Likewise their are minor differences in their genes.

Lolwut, you are not your genes. That is why your identical twin will not have your fingerprints or retinal patern, and probably will not look enough like you that even your friends would have difficulty telling you apart.

eh? you will, won't you, I mean you do have at least the same fingerprint as your twin, and you are quite identical unless you are heavier or do something different with your hair etc. Just saying.

The retinal patterns are even farther off. And when identical (monozygotic is a better word) twins die of natural causes, it's often quite different ones. So much for your DNA code being your medical destiny.

How strange, I was just about to cite a recent straight dope column myself in response to this:

QUOTE(lolwut @ Sat 10th January 2009, 4:12am)

It must be extremely difficult for transsexuals; I understand that. But I can't personally relate to why one would have a strong desire to change sex. Iit's not something that... you know. I just don't get it at all. If you're born XY, you'll always be XY. There's no point in having a 'sex change' if you'll always be genetically male.

How strange, I was just about to cite a recent straight dope column myself in response to this:

QUOTE(lolwut @ Sat 10th January 2009, 4:12am)

It must be extremely difficult for transsexuals; I understand that. But I can't personally relate to why one would have a strong desire to change sex. Iit's not something that... you know. I just don't get it at all. If you're born XY, you'll always be XY. There's no point in having a 'sex change' if you'll always be genetically male.

Intersex conditions are shockingly waaay more prevalent than people are aware of; somewhere between 1 in 500 - 1 in 2,000 live births can be classified so. Obviously, it's only in relatively recent times that women with CAIS, for example, could be diagnosed at all. Before decent karyotyping, they were just women with fertility problems and not XY persons with a genetic insensitivity to androgens. We just didn't know it and neither did they. There are plenty of folks roaming about with dodgy karyotypes - we meet them all the time - but we (and largely, they) don't know it.

Then there are people who are 'immune' to male hormones, to varying degrees. There are also dizygotic mosaical 'persons'; basically twins with a single body. They can be both XX and XY, depending on where you take your tissue samples from This is extremely rare. Check out this fascinating picture of Blaschko lines in a mosaic individual. This basically shows the patterns of cell migration during fetal development and both sets of cells are showing up as 'streaks'.